meet the neighbors.

While I am currently lazing around the cabin, I'd like to introduce you to my grandma's neighbors - cleverly disguised as Bret Michaels, Michael Jackson herself and Angus Young. People always ask me what in the world brought me all the way to Winnipeg, MB from LA of all places - and much to my initial feminist, independent denial, the truth is these crazy Carefoots (especially the one on the far left) had a huge influence on my decision! =) They have lived across the gravel road from Grams for like thirty years and when I would get shipped to Grams for the summer growing up, I would run around the lake with Kara, my cousin Kevin and Mitch playing kick the can and catching ice cream pails full of frogs. Mitch doesn't actually remember me being a part of his childhood stating "You were a girl. Girls had germs." not even so much as remembering one of my fondest memories of 'Mitch as a kid with a bowl cut' when our parents sent us to Dauphin Bible Camp for the week- canoe races, 6-foot banana splits, swimming at midnight, archery, capture the flag!! I came back and much to Grams' dismay the only thing I learned that week was "It was great; I'm going to marry Mitch one day!" Typical 1o-year-old me. We kept in touch over the years coming home for Country Fest every summer looking forward to chasing the boy-next-door but it wasn't until my senior year of high school and (as fate would have it as I like to think) Mitch's hockey team started coming to Estero, FL (my neighborhood!) for a college showcase every Christmas for the next four years and that was when things really started to kindle (or at least that's how it plays back in my head; Mitch may not even remember me attending his college games). Hockey brought Mitchell to Phoenix after college and with him on the West coast and me on the East, I quickly made a habit out of catching flights to visit him on a monthly basis. We spent the summer after I graduated university as next-door-neighbors, him at his parents and me at Grams. That's when I really fell in love with the entire Carefoot family, you know - M.J. and Angus. At the end of the summer, it was an exciting change in geography to not have to return to our respective coasts when we were practically neighbors again with only a five-hour drive between us with his return to Phoenix and my relocation to LA ... Then one hasty decision led to the next and now I am here ... in Winnipeg, MB! ... where we have now substituted the word neighbor with roommate for the first time in our three year-ish rollercoaster ride. So that is the abbrev'ed version of how I ended up in Winnipeg... but as I sit here at the lake I wonder if I'm going to have to eat my words in four years and extend this story into how I ended up in Dauphin from LA...